


Open Mic Night

by AlteredChronologistics



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-06 12:16:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/735523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlteredChronologistics/pseuds/AlteredChronologistics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So there’s a possibility that you’re kissing my ass? You’ve sure got style then, grumpypants,” she whispered, clearly in reference to the fact that what he was doing was nowhere close to ass-kissing. He rolled his eyes, returning to the sink, which he figured was his safe place in the situation. Her fingers tickled up the back of his neck, and he growled. They were retracted immediately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lips That Provide Soft Tones and Burning Flavours

The air stung his palette as well as his eyes, and he tried his best not to breathe despite the unchasable and violent urge to get fresh air. He knew he wouldn’t find such luxuries in this place. Fresh air was for the highly privileged individuals who had decent taste in bars. As for his current pain, however, he was rather certain that alcohol was also in the top three passive torture devices found in the dank pseudo-tavern. 

He couldn’t well live with being impolite, though, and especially to such a convincingly scary bartender. No, no, even Karkat Vantas could not stand up in the face of someone who he assumed was named Olga, or something of the like. Sollux had told him that such names were reserved for only the most brutal of human subjugglator women. He had to be fucking kidding.

The drink was an anonymous gift, apparently. ‘Olga’ reminded him that it was rude to refuse, and so he took sips from the buttery, nut-flavoured mixture. The main ingredient, of course, was almost certainly fire from the bowels of hell, and his eyes watered as it scraped down his esophagus. 

His ears rang, too. This, however, was not from the drink, but from the nearly petrifying tuning of a guitar being strummed halfway across the room. If there was such a thing as a screaming banshee, the instrument that the man on stage was holding would be likely be in tune with it. The man’s voice was only a slight tint of improvement.

Karkat hated open mic night. He really did. But he was here nonetheless. He had nothing better to do than to let his blood run through his veins with an alcoholic itch. He wanted to strangle the guy on stage. Olga seemed to want the same; and the performer was soon consumed by a sea of booing when one of the more tone-deaf patrons finally caught the brutish bartender’s intimidating gaze and received the message therein.

~

Karkat made it to the bathroom just in time. His gifted drink was entirely shitty, and his unclean blood forced him into a world of spinning not halfway through its sickening flavour. He held his feet back against the unlockable door of the bathroom stall, and reached up to tug hard on his horns as he propped his elbows on the disgusting edges of the bowl. The added pain that shot through his skull was enough to finally make him vomit. It tasted exactly the same coming out as it did going down. Tears came to his eyes.

Karkat hated open mic night. He really did. He splashed water into his face and cupped his hands over his flushed cheeks, hanging over the sink and groaning. A feminine voice sounded out behind him.

“You’re in the girl’s room, troll boy,” the peppy voice sounded. There was a thump on the counter not far down its length that said that either something had laid a very large egg in a very large nest in the bathroom of a bar called ‘The Timewarp’, or that the girl had hoisted herself up to sit in between two nasty sinks. 

Karkat assumed the latter, though he was no longer completely certain. He wished throwing up got rid of intoxication. 

It didn’t. 

The voice sounded out again. “You missed it,” it hummed, all tucked up in a sickening range of cheery vocalization. And still it continued. “My performance, that is. I guess it was good. I mean, everyone stood up and clapped. Maybe it would have made you feel better.”

The words were accompanied by a soft giggle, and Karkat pried his face away from the dirty porcelain of the sink to look up at her, flecks of red showing the growth of maturity in his otherwise grey irises. He spoke in turn, of course, though his idea of in turn was normally based upon snarky opportunities. “Right, right. Or, you know, I would have fucking thrown up on someone, been beaten black and blue, and thrown out of a bar that is more of a punishment to stay inside. Sounds like a fucking great time to me, honestly,” he hissed. 

The girl - with her lightly freckled cheeks, long black hair, and stupid aviators - gave him a half-frown, scooting closer and avoiding falling in a sink as she did so. Her fingers brushed the hair on the back of his head. “Come on, silly. I was joking. I didn’t know you were being sick, though...” 

Her voice was soft and sympathetic and its taste did not mix well with the flavour of alcohol-imbued sickness that was in his mouth. He looked down, brow knit tightly with permanent grump. She quietly offered to play him a song when he was feeling better, and he cursed as his mind turned to molasses, obscuring the thoughts that rose and keeping them far away from the top of his mind.

He finally did manage to choke out words, though. He asked why she would offer something like that to a ‘potentially ass-kissing stranger’ in a ‘definitely ass-slobbering bar bathroom’. She only giggled, fussing with his hair. “So there’s a possibility that you’re kissing my ass? You’ve sure got style then, grumpypants,” she whispered, clearly in reference to the fact that what he was doing was nowhere close to ass-kissing. He rolled his eyes, returning to the sink, which he figured was his safe place in the situation. Her fingers tickled up the back of his neck, and he growled. They were retracted immediately.

“Look, I’m just a sick asshole. Not the kind of thing you want to fucking sing to. I’m a festering anus in a pool of my own damn shit. The Time Warp bar: where intelligent people go to die, for fuck’s sake.” He coughed a bit, the burning of stomach acid and booze still in his throat. She frowned at his words, and he could see it in the small sliver of the dirty mirror that was still within view with his face over the sink. He splashed more water in his face, quietly apologizing. He had half a mind to quickly retract said apology, but he didn’t. The girl shrugged as he finally stood up straight.

“It’s fine,” she mumbled. “Gross, but fine. Just. Try not to say silly things like that too much? I mean, I came here to play music, not die.” Karkat immediately wondered how she came under the category of intelligent, and, seemingly reading his mind, she went on a quick spiel about recent advances in particle physics. He shut his dropped jaw moments after that. She grinned smugly. Far too smugly.

“So uhm... about the singing? I mean, I’m sure you’re... far fucking better than a growling troll. We don’t do music. Or. Most of us don’t. I know of one...” He quietly thought of Aradia and her silly lullabies. His cheeks lit up, just as they had been programmed to when his tipsy mind thought of her hips, and curves, and all the hugs they had shared. 

It occurred to Karkat that he was absolutely dreadful at being drunk, if all he could think of was cuddly, affectionate bullshit. 

He tried to hide his cheeks. 

The dark-haired (tan- not stereotypical pink -skinned) human already had her guitar off of her back, and really didn’t notice his face anyway.


	2. What Dust From Yonder Bootprints

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Need another song, barfbag?” she asked, as fondly as he could ever imagine anyone saying such a thing. He had recently learned that her name was Jade. She had also learned his in return, though it was apparent that she didn’t want to use it.

Karkat thought of jumping. He couldn’t help it, honestly. The alcohol was wearing off and that - along with his current position sitting on the rooftop - only made it that much easier to picture the short fall to death. He leaned his head back with a sigh, and he was rather comforted by her back being pressed against his as he did so.

“Need another song, barfbag?” she asked, as fondly as he could ever imagine anyone saying such a thing. He had recently learned that her name was Jade. She had also learned his in return, though it was apparent that she didn’t want to use it. The morning was close, and he was far too sleepy to get angry about that, however. He grunted his approval towards the offer of music. 

Even though he swore how she flipped her hair over her shoulders and onto his was purposeful, as if she enjoyed the notion that her silky trusses tickled his neck, he didn’t comment on it. Because she began to play again, and he was quickly unable of anything but melting into the sound and leaning back against her a bit heavier than he would have liked, forcing her to giggle between lyrics. He didn’t mind. There was a sort of mind-washing attribute that her laugh carried, leaking its airy magic over him and cleansing him of anger for a moment. 

But no. Magic was bullshit, as an old friend once preached. He was tired, drunk, and likely affectionate out of his mind. Or hallucinating past his regular, genetic gloom and grit. Jade was clearly just another annoying human who he would undoubtedly attempt and fail repeatedly to get away from. 

Her fingers brushed over strings and then dropped to support her frame on the rough, nearly timeless plane of the roof, where the only hint of non-uniform wear and tear shown upon it were lightened bootprints, where buildup of dirt had been avoided. It was as if someone had stood still for a very long time. Or... perhaps... several people. Karkat noted this, but didn’t note it too much, because Jade had stopped singing and he was all-too-preoccupied with wishing it hadn’t happened. His wish was granted with a slight slant by her next actions.

Her idle fingers danced effervescent patterns into the grime as she set her guitar aside and shifted gracefully to hug him from behind, nose pressed to the back of his neck, just below where his shaggy hair was cropped off. He tensed up, and reared internally before she whispered a request.

“Please don’t barf on me or beat me up... or spontaneously become extra drunk and do something stupid. And I promise not to be too cuddly so that you won’t get... heh... intoxicated,” she vowed, mouth flush to the spine that his entirety desperately clung to. She poured out lyrics in spoken but quiet word, the melody lost but the meaning nearly amplified. “Babe we’re here on high, brought a sleeping bag ‘cause tonight’s not the night that I’m lettin’ you die. We’ll reschedule. Make a date. Turn up seventeen and a half minutes late...”

“For our own... funerals...”

“‘Cause tonight’s not the night that I’m lettin’ you die... on...”

“Nobody’s gonna find us. Let them all think that we’re... gone...”


	3. The Unorthodox Envelope of Noble Hues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diurnality was key when working alongside humans. It was also key when trying to annoy the hell out of a troll. He blinked away pain and let it slip away in light tears from his eyes before rubbing out the sleep as well. His surroundings were still, unsurprisingly, the rooftop.

The next line would have been sweet, but Karkat hadn’t been conscious to hear it. His eyes flickered open once in the morning to her hair, spreading in unruly precipitation from the head she had tucked under his chin. The slipping, windy noise of fabric upon standard sleeping bag caused a shiver to her, and a bit of a sleepy murmur, but none of it did more than guide Karkat back to sleep. 

His arms wrapped around her intentionally now, rather than the forced cuddle that she placed him in when the sack-based resting location had to be logistically tugged around him and zipped up. 

This was nicer.

~

But she was gone when he properly woke. 

He dragged himself wriggling from the sleeping bag, getting a bit exasperated when tossing and rolling and squirming wouldn’t get it uncaught from his beltline. 

This was not to be his problem right now. 

He propped himself back on his elbows to look around groggily at the morning swathes of blinding light. Diurnality was key when working alongside humans. It was also key when trying to annoy the hell out of a troll. He blinked away pain and let it slip away in light tears from his eyes before rubbing out the sleep as well. His surroundings were still, unsurprisingly, the rooftop: inverted footprints, himself and the sleeping bag, a small backpack, and two pairs of shoes.

The way out of the sleeping bag took only a moment more, and he stood groggy in the sunlight. The factors of hangover and beating sun now added up. What if Jade had really just been trying to murder him through a mixture of poisoning his drink and letting the sun push him over the edge of the building? He groaned, and sat down upon the end of the soft sleeping pocket, looking down at what was left for him. His own shoes were the most obvious. He wiggled his toes in his socks to help his slow mind catch up with that fact. The next were her shoes, and a backpack. He could only assume that the backpack was also hers.

Yawning like an intense roar toward the sunlight, he shoved the backpack open with a grace that was only his. It was empty; not a single thing had been tucked into any of the many pockets. He turned his attention to the shoes, which were light and colorful; intense green Chuck Taylors with laces like a party of ignited noble gases, if you could dangle charms off of burning gas. She must have been blind to be able to leave the things here.

But inside of the left shoe was a scrap of folded paper. This was clearly some immense conspiracy bullshit. Karkat unfolded the paper. It had words on it, which was just about all that his brain could currently stand to figure out. He yawned again. It smelled, even to him, far too greatly of alcohol.

~

His eyes unfogged with time. The early morning dew had lifted hours previously, when it was actually morning, and now it was likely early afternoon. The noise from the street drifted gracefully up to the rooftop and brutally assaulted him, but his mind was somewhere else. The note, specifically, held great promise. The backpack sagged from his shoulders and rubbed up against a few other pedestrians on the streets as he walked in the general direction that the curly handwriting ordered.

“good morning, sleepy head!” the first line read, green ballpoint ink matching the memory he had of her eyes. It hardly fit within the remaining blue lines on the paper itself, whose frayed ends could have continued with the parallel marks forever. The next set of curled words infringed terribly on the territory of self doubt within him: “i really wanted to stay on the roof with you. seriously!”

His mind immediately went to criticizing her writing as a defense mechanism, and, realizing this, he sighed. The rest of the note explained very little, but did tell him to head to a particular park. It also mentioned to be there by noon. She must have known he would wake up too late for such normal timeframes. His doubt reached a cresting peak, even as it went on to say that she would stay in the park for as long as she could.

The post scripture also reminded him to put the sleeping bag and her shoes in the backpack. He had done so during his first read-through.

And then there was her phone number.

He really didn’t trust it as far as he could throw the scrap of instruction. Not that he could throw it at all, with the way his knuckles turned white from his deep grip, crinkling and even stretching the paper’s torn edges. He wouldn’t let go for the second time that morning. And this time, he had control over when the possibility of ongoing coexistence was let free of his hold.


	4. The Wonder in Glossy Fountains of Youth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They stood all over the playground equipment, hollering and whining through their little mouths with missing ‘baby’ teeth. It was a strange human phenomenon, but he disregarded it so he could perhaps not be overwhelmed by thinking too much of the tiny devils. His foothold into sanity, now, lay in the words of children.

He clenched and unclenched his fists when he remembered the day of the week that it currently was. But of course, Karkat had to realize sooner or later why the park was so full of people, and why their dense-bodied picnics took up the majority of the shade. It all forced him to walk in the sun, and though it was hardly as bad as it would be on Alternia, it was painful. His aching temples craved for the angry release that would come of stomping over checkered blankets and crushing watermelons under his heel.

His prize, he was certain, would hardly be impressed with that. Though he pushed that word away immediately. She wasn’t his prize. A prize was what you would be rewarded with had you succeeded at something, or made your way through a heavy task. He, on the other hand, had gotten drunk, thrown up, and altogether failed to be anything but a grumpy trainwreck.

Aside from one moment, of course. And at that point, she had been asleep.

No, no, Jade Harley was no prize. She was, undoubtedly, the manifestation of the pity that the universe took on him. And he would have none of that shit. Pity was fake, and broken, and ridden with liars and beggars all the same. Though he once preached that Troll romance was entirely based on it, he now took second and third guesses against his past self. He had the slightest bit of hope that someone would be insane enough to like him. He also had a large chunk of hope that wished that someone so stupid didn’t exist. He had dealt with far too many stupid folks.

There was something about Miss Harley, though, that he also second guessed himself over and over about. His mind was a game of she-loves-me-not. But also, it was a game of whether or not he cared if her feelings for him were fake, in the end. His feet wouldn’t stop walking towards her, even when he thought she was irritating. When he claimed to be far too introverted, he wrapped his arms around her.

It was little surprise, though, that she was surrounded by a field of anti-Karkat. The sonic weapon that resided in the screaming, albeit frail voices of children playing on a playground. He had avoided them twice since he entered the grassy park, but now as he ran into them again, he realized he was more of an idiot than anyone could possibly love. They stood all over the playground equipment, hollering and whining through their little mouths with missing ‘baby’ teeth. It was a strange human phenomenon, but he disregarded it so he could perhaps not be overwhelmed by thinking too much of the tiny devils. His foothold into sanity, now, lay in the words of children.

“Come ooooon Miss Jade!” one yelled. The rest chimed in on a discordant word. “Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaase tell us how to climb up to the top a’ the jungle gym!”

Karkat winced at their synchronized failure to pronounce ‘jungle,’ but he traced their beady eyes to find her.

“No way!” she giggled, her legs crossed as she sat atop the highest roof-covered section of the playground. Her grin was brighter than the sun, and twice as tolerable, as she mouthed out words that for a moment Karkat didn’t listen to. Nonetheless, she spoke them. “Your parents would all kill me if anybody got hurt!” earned a groan from the little ones, and a few whined to wake Karkat from his daft daydreams. “Frankly they’re all big bumbums,” she continued, “but you know what? They’re there for your safety. I didn’t have parents when I was your size! I got hurt all the time when I was adventuring.”

“I lived on an island,” she whispered, cupping her hands over her mouth now to remind them that it was a secret. They all let out gasps, and their tiny mouths hung open from their chipmunk cheeks before they all blamed her for being a big lucky bum. Soon, though, they went about their business, convinced that she wouldn’t help them defy their parental units. 

Her black hair must have felt scalding, though it shimmered brightly in the sun. Her skin, similarly, seemed quite at home in the reflective oven that was the playground. Gravel below let off heat waves that hardly dared to reach her, with her freckled, browned parchment skin and her eyes of grassy hue. Those eyes caught Karkat, in time, and then her smile showed, and she hung her bare feet over the edge of her metal perch, wiggling her toes. Kids moved out of the way, and she hopped down onto the gravel, finding her way to Karkat.

He was more awestruck than the children had been, with their shimmering eyes that perfectly related to fountains of youth; wide and wonder-filled. His jaw hung slightly, his lips parting as he tied himself up in an unproductive smirk, nose crinkling. His eyes darted around her.

“Is that heatstroke, or are you just happy to see me?” she teased. He swallowed, and got his jaw back on its short leash. 

“U-uhm... well, more surprised, but yes, definitely got an acute case of heat aversion. The sun hardly qualifies as ointment.” Only the last few words carried his signature growl. The rest were telltale little prayers that definitely didn’t slip by the priestess. She smirked at the hopeful quiver in the sound.

And then there was something. Something happened somewhere in the surroundings, where Karkat wasn’t paying attention because as far as he was concerned he only wanted to pay attention to her. And yet she glanced around, and her mouth - though it was so great at keeping a healthy little smile - turned down for a moment.

“Uhm. I’m sorry to say this but... I... I do need to go. You know. Boyfriend will miss me and such!” she said, cheerful as she went in to give him a kiss on the cheek. “You took forever, sleepy head.”

Whether she was simply recounting the amount of time he had taken to get to the park, or was really telling the future of how long it would take for him to recover from that level of sheer disappointment. Surprisingly, the thirteen hours that had passed since they had met instilled in him a now sharp amount of horror. He had known her forever, right? Right?

Wrong, his mind supplied. Thirteen hours. Karkat Vantas, you are not allowed to be this disappointed. She has a boyfriend. You’re nobody. Thirteen hours. His mind tore itself to shreds, being disappointed and then letting railroad spikes run down into his spine for doing so. It was not his place to be disappointed. 

She still stood there, looking at the cracks that were drawn to the surface of those red-flecked eyes. She could hardly meet them with her own now, though her thoughts tried to provoke a smile from herself, and, from him. Internally begging him not to be hurting, and to be the joking, cursing, outwardly angry person that believed he was better than everyone anyway. She begged him to yell, because those cracks were worse than anything.

~

The edges of the paper were smudged by the oil of his fingers now, as he sat on the edge of the bed and fiddled with the phone number. One he would never call. 


End file.
